Was there a person, a book, a situation that helped you see that the "Truth" was not what it was supposed to be??
Who or What Helped YOU Get Out Of The Watchtower Mindset?
by minimus 43 Replies latest jw friends
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DanaBug
When I got df'd, I also got kicked out of my parents' house. I stayed on several friends couches. These people had known me for less than 4 months, and they offered. One friend let me stay at his apartment while he was out of the country. He barely knew me.
It took a while before I realized what that meant. People I had known all my life turned their backs on me after an announcement, people I barely knew offered me the help I needed, just because I needed it. That's unconditional love right there.
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Terry
Let me put it this way; I walked around post Kingdom Hall with a smell of Watchtower Theology hanging in my brain that I couldn't get rid of.
I was out for good but all the mechanism of thought was tainted.
So, another twenty years passed with me seeing things virtually the same I way I had done when I was a JW inside.
Two things shook me loose.
I was playing cards at a casual party with some people I did not know and one of the players at the table mentioned he use to be a Jehovah's Witness.
I let it pass without comment.
Others at the table began asking questions of him, naturally.
But--get this! Even though he had faded and said he no longer believed all that "crap" he started defending the belief system.
Passing strange....
The more he went into refutation mode (Hell, Trinity, blood, birthdays) the angrier I became (although I didn't consciously know WHY I was angry.)
Finally, I spoke up. What I said startled him and me at the same time! The whole room grew quiet like in a bad western.
"You know damned well you don't believe a word you just said! Because---IF you did--you'd be right back in the Kingdom Hall and knocking on doors placing Watchtowers with sleepy householders!"
He just gaped at me because I hadn't said much of anything in the whole conversation----until then!
His mouth was sort of working like a fish yanked out of the river on the bottom of a canoe. He sputtered but nothing came out.
Suddenly, I felt terrible. I apologized to him and started to explain (mostly to myself) why I'd blurted that out.
"You see, I'm just like you are right now. I hate the whole Jehovah's Witless nonsense and resent the time I wasted there and never want to go back. But, until now---when you said what you said---I didn't realize NOTHING HAS CHANGED inside my mind! I don't have any REALITY to replace what I've be taught to AUTOMATICALLY THINK!"
I knew I needed my mind back because I was just a windup toy that belonged lock, stock and barrell to the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
The second thing that helped me was accidentally reading a book in the library while killing time before picking up my kids at school.
It was Mortimer J. Adler's TEN PHILISOPHICAL MISTAKES.
I couldn't put it down! I read it cover to cover and immediately drove to a bookstore and bought a copy.
That was the beginning of getting my mind back. Studying "epistemology" did it for me. The basic question everybody has to answer:
"What do I really know and how do I really know it?"
I gradually discovered somebody had stolen reality from me and replaced it with a phoney one. My world view was about as genuine as a video game.
I set about correcting that one concept at a time.
I had to go through practically my entire conceptual knowledge base and clean it out with Lysol and a wire brush.
I had to let go of mysticism, superstition, wishful-thinking cum "accurate knowledge" and replace every word, definition and concept with a rational referent.
The rest came much easier.
I was a Manchurian Candidate for the Watchtower until that card game.
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minimus
Funny what makes things click for us!
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Mad Sweeney
Lots of things.
I was always a relatively independent thinker and knew the Borg was imperfect. But being programmed I thought that Jehovah would solve the problems in his due time like he always seemed to do with Israel.
Then I was "counseled" by a couple elders about my attitude toward those appointed by God's organization (meaning THEM, the elders). I was supposed to treat them not as my peers, fellow adult men who I could talk to as equals, but as "stars in Christ's right hand" who should never be questioned. I KNEW that was complete and utter BS, so from that day on I was open to listening to and reading anything and everything about the Borganization.
I still considered myself a faithful JW, so after lurking here briefly, I ran to the safer confines of Robert King's e-watchman site/forum. He and many people there still support the JW doctrine while disagreeing with certain things and holding the Borg leadership culpable for their failings. I read his book, which actually is a clever twist on Biblical prophecy in relation to the Watchtower, but by the time I was finished with it I had already taken in enough information from other sources to realize that the Watchtower isn't just a sinful version of Jehovah's Organization like many of Israel's kings supposedly were, it was just plain NOT God's organization.
So while e-w was a sort of soft-landing spot for kicking off my journey away from the WT, it was just as "off" in its own way.
I watched some youtubes, read some other websites including a few free pdf chapters of Crisis of Conscience posted online, and found myself back here on JWN. The recommendations of Combatting Cult Mind Control were ubiquitous and so I read it. That changed my life. I got it. The Borg isn't wrong because they're doctrinally wrong (who ISN'T doctrinally wrong?), they're wrong because of how they treat people - they're a dangerous mind control cult. After reading CCMC, I was mentally free. I went on to read pretty much all of jwfacts.com , parts of In Search of Christian Freedom, and all of Crisis of Conscience.
Somewhere in there I stopped going to meetings cold turkey. There were reasons for doing that instead of fading but thats another story for another time.
So in summary:
The Borg's bad behavior itself, e-watchman, CCMC and CoC, jwfacts.com , got me on my way out. Support from JWN and the great people here helped me and continue to help me break free even further.
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acolytes
You were a little to blame Minimus.
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fokyc
The Elders in my wife's congregation.
They lied so much about a situation; that eventually they had to lie about the GB/FDS instructions.
IF the truth was the truth, there is no way they would have done that!
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Nice_Dream
I had a baby and that changed everything. There was no time to study or listen at meetings, and my mind was no longer being constantly indoctrinated. A question about "how do I know this is God's organization?" crept in and I did research to try and prove it true. Instead my whole belief system came crashing down.
This site has been tremendously helpful for research, and learning how to think critically...something my born-in brain had trouble doing on its own.
The "new light" about the overlapping generation led me to this site. And it was after reading Crisis of Conscience that I realized the Governing Body were just men and not inspired by God like I had believed my whole life. This was just another man made religion, except for its horrible cultlike control of its members.
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minimus
I'm fascinated by what moved you..... And if I helped anyone to get out, I'm happy!
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clarity
Let me put it this way; I walked around post Kingdom Hall with a smell of Watchtower Theology hanging in my brain that I couldn't get rid of.
I was out for good but all the mechanism of thought was tainted.
So, another twenty years passed with me seeing things virtually the same I way I had done when I was a JW inside
Terry's words ring a bell with me ... just realized it, thank you!
With the failure of the 1975 'lies' and marriage problems I more or less left and thought all the crying and angst was just MY unhappiness. Didn't 'get' that my brain was still stuck, like a needle on an old cracked record.... going around in the same groove over & over & over.
Finally made the leap with the last generation new lite! Reseached my brains out and here I am!
clarity